thoughts about learning…and other matters

Month: August 2013

Time travel stories are tricky. The author must either ignore the inevitable paradoxes or must find some plausible device for resolving them. (In a few cases, there’s a third option: the author decides to wallow in paradoxes, which can put… Read More ›

The reason these kids are upset is that they are required to do something they can’t do. They are forced, repeatedly, to stare at hairy, square- rooted, polynomialed horseradish clumps of mute symbology that irritate them, that stop them in… Read More ›

What an amazing book! Or perhaps I should say “What an amazing house!” Bob Walker and his wife Frances have turned their house into a jungle gym for their nine cats, as you can see in this image. But… Read More ›

Who needs a tutor? You do! Well, no…you probably don’t. Even if you’re faced with the challenge of Honors Geometry (a rude awakening to many students who are suddenly faced with the demands of their first high-school honors math course),… Read More ›

I hate to use a phrase that was coined by a senior advisor to President George W. Bush. But use it I must…and even in a similar context. Michael Gerson described the all-too-common educational practice of expecting less from members… Read More ›

Yesterday we had our final workshop of the summer, so we must be ready (hah!) to return to school on Tuesday. This workshop was titled “Learning Goals and Common Assessments.” You might be wondering what that means. I’ll tell you…. Read More ›

Yesterday we had a one-day workshop on using web-based technology in math courses. The premise was that the technology used in our math courses has been almost unchanged over the past ten years, despite the big improvements in web-based applications that… Read More ›

Just finished participating in a two-day workshop on BYOT, a.k.a. BYOD. If you’re not up on current educational jargon, you might not realize that the T stands for “technology,” the D for “device.” In either case, the idea is that… Read More ›

It was just over five and a half years ago, in my 500th post, that I wrote this: I’m pleased to have kept it up for 500 posts, and I’m looking forward to 500 more. And now I’ve completed those… Read More ›

Having read and enjoyed Erik Larson’s non-fiction account of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, I decided to read his tale about the flood that… Read More ›